Bad Behaviour (1993) User Reviews

Delightful & witty slice of life.

[el-5 · 9/10 · 26 February 2002]

I caught this movie in a theatre well over a decade ago & it's STAYED with me. The characters are true to life, though a few notches wittier, more appealing & charismatic than your average neighbor. I loved the marriage of these 2 low-key but unique characters...their barbs & their little tribulations over the course of a day or so, mixed with their undeniable, enduring love for one another. A joy!

Like Mike Leigh? Try Bad Behaviour.

[Trellismay · 8/10 · 28 February 2018]

We really enjoyed this film. It's a witty, spontaneous, engaging story of marriage(s). It's well-cast with actors who are utterly believable. Camera work is so good, great close-ups; captures authentic emotion and business. Sub-plot involves teens and kids - they are equally good and believable.

Set in London, the row houses and streets have such appeal. The age of this film does not diminish its value; some of the phones, the typewriters, etc., are visible much of the time but in no way distract from the contemporary validity of the story or its people.

See this movie if you are weary of TV snark, exploding bodies, car chases, buckets of blood. We will see this again, with some of our kids who've not been exposed to Mike Leigh or some of the good actors from the UK. You will be delighted!

Fresh and lively

[steve-883 · 10/10 · 14 April 2001]

A fantastic British film which mixes realism with a freshness, sense of fun and vitality that is sometimes missing in the more dour Ken Loach movies. The performances as a whole are great and the characters become very well rounded. You can sense that the performers enjoyed making this film. If you are looking for something different and something pretty unpredictable, you cant do worse than Bad Behaviour.

fairly engaging

[didi-5 · 2 May 2004]

OK, so the plot might be minimal in this one, but the cast are good enough to make you overlook that. The cast includes Stephen Rea as the harrassed ad man who dreams of being a cartoon superhero for his kids, Sinead Cusack as his wife, Claire Higgins as a neurotic friend, Philip Jackson as a businessman con artist, and Phil Daniels as an inept pair of twin builders.

I thought that Stephen Rea in particular was great in this; he usually gets all the intense parts to play and this was a bit more lightweight comedy. One or two bits of the film didn't ring true but in the main it is entertaining.

Surprisingly good

[badjuju_00 · 8/10 · 20 August 2005]

I thought this was an interesting film portraying the lives of middle-aged working adults in London. The story centers on these adults and their relationships with their friends and children - although the premise seems simple, the movie has several funny scenarios to keep you interested and amused.

You have the building consultant, Howard Spink, who is also the landlord of another building. This guy is a crook who takes advantage of his friends and tenants. You have the husband who seems content with life but his wife seems like she's going through an early menopause by trying to pick fights with him and being overly emotional.

Then you have the Nunn brothers - Roy and Ray who are identical twins. Ray dislikes Howard because he feels Howard treats him like a dumb person - Howard even mentioned Ray was slow.

Roy is the younger twin - younger by 54 minutes - who is fed up with questions about being identical twins since he's had to deal with psychologists interested in the mystery of twins since he was a young schoolboy. He also shares his frustration of how he got the raw deal as the younger child from his parents since the older Ray always got to hold the dinner money and he was also forced to use Ray's dirty bathwater after him - that was a hilarious scene.

All in all, a good film without the token violence or sex scene.

I recommend this.

Only Believable Acting is the

[TheVirginArmy · 31 October 2003]

( acting was believable).That is really all I've to say of a film that was so lifeless and without point , I can only imagine a hardcore anglophile to take to it. I don't need to get into detail of a film that lacked it. What is suprising is that Stephen Rea was in this film.

The most forgettable film I've ever seen.

A Plot line By Proxy, Efficiently Put Together, With Something Very Special A Result.

[rsoonsa · 8/10 · 1 August 2009]

Innovative direction by Les Blair when constructing this too little known work, a collaboration with skilled players, includes the provision to the cast of only a mere outline, in lieu of a script, that ultimately expands into a 25 page scenario sans written dialogue. He motivates his actors to give dimension for the mere flinders furnished them, through pure improvisation that is grounded upon their own frames of reference. The outcome proves to be a nice job all around that ruffles some of the standards that have been adopted by cinema enthusiasts. The storyline's centre is focused upon a married Irish pair, émigrés into North London from Dublin, Gerry and Ellie McAllister (Stephen Rae/Sinead Cusack), and several crises that challenge the harmony of the couple's middle-class urban existence, most of their troubles having a familiar quality for a viewer. Gerry is employed as a planning commissioner for a North London region town, while Ellie, "pre-menstrual" (in Blair's words), works part-time in a book store and watches over the McAllister's two sons. Gerry is intent upon utilizing local ordinances in order to sanction a caravan site as home for a group of Irish Travelers, while his increasingly frustrated wife dreams of completing a longstanding novel-in-progress , but finds that a great deal of her time is being taken by an inarticulate friend, Jess (Clare Higgins), who is apparently in the midst of a nervous collapse. This work has nary a dull passage, due essentially to the effective naturalistic technique exercised in its production. Twin brothers, Ray and Roy Nunn(both played by Phil Daniels) are carpenters hired by Ellie to refurbish the McAllister bathroom, and they, along with Howard Spink (Philip Jackson, in a neatly controlled turn), a confidence man who contracts them, each connects with all of the film's other principal characters, and provide a good deal of the ironic humour that enlivens the piece, while giving it the consonance that normally comes from a conventionally scripted picture. Rae and Cusack rehearsed their roles thoroughly and the film clearly benefits, as it is convincing in the details, with thwarted novelist Ellie's shelved hopes matched by Gerry's surreptitiously drawn alter ego, a cartoon hero he has labelled 'Paddy Plan-It', "trapped in a world not of his making". The narrative does not reach its end in anything like to a customary sense, as this would have only lessened the effectiveness of the film's nicely wrought character development. More than one viewing will probably be necessary for most in order to fully appreciate the rich texture of a film for which all dialogue is improvisational. Additionally, the process with which plot elements commingle is cleverly accomplished by an able supporting cast that clearly benefits from intensive rehearsal sessions shared with always top-tier Rea and Cusack. Notice must be made of pleasing performances of Daniels as both twins, Higgins as a bedevilled Jess and Saira Todd who is cast as an eagerly flirtatious co-worker of Gerry. This film is of fine quality on its own merits, and also scores as an inspired technical exercise.